Ballislife Facebook Live Broadcast Draws 1M Views And It’s Just The Start

An AAU game last month involving LaMelo and LaVar Ball, broadcasted on Facebook live by Ballislife, hit 1.3 million total views, including 800,000 that tuned in live and 620,000 uniques.

Ballislife, a digital content platform that specializes in amateur basketball, normally distributes its content on YouTube, and had done content on Facebook before in the past, but only forayed into the Facebook Live feature in May. Its first game — the 2017 Ballislife All-American Game — garnered 170,000 views, and it’s only been uphill from there. In the past month, Ballislife has had as many views on Facebook as it had in the previous year combined.

The July 27 matchup between Zion Williamson and LaMelo Ball — with LaVar Ball coaching the Big Ballers — was particularly sensational, considering the social media presences and Q scores of all involved. That culminated in a matchup that produced its own hype — Ballislife provided rather limited promotion prior to the game’s airing.

“The head-to-head matchup was perfect for this, especially for the social media crowd that likes it like that,” Ballislife co-founder Matt Rodriguez said. “That’s what made it bigger than everything else.

Ballislife has decided to enter the realm of Facebook in an effort to diversify its fanbase. While its content on YouTube dominates in the 13-to-18 year old demographic, its Facebook audience skews more towards 25- to 34-year-olds, which leads to more mature and knowledgeable dialogue, according to Rodriguez.

“If you look at [YouTube] comments, you’ll see exactly what I mean,” Rodriguez said. “[Facebook users] are more able to converse with each other in a more mature way.”

Also, Facebook allows its users to sign up for notifications whenever the platform goes live, allowing users to know that an event is about to happen no matter what they’re doing on Facebook at the time. Users can also share content directly to the feeds of their friends and communities.

Juxtapose that with YouTube, which has an algorithm that prioritizes recently watched content by putting its “what to watch” feature at the top of its app and website — while subscribed content is more towards the middle of the screen — meaning that one is more likely to watch videos similar to the ones that they’ve just watched. If one hasn’t been watching many live broadcasts as of late, there’s a likelihood that he or she won’t be directly notified of a Ballislife livestream. YouTube also has no feature to share content with other users.

That’s not to say that Ballislife shuns the younger demographics of YouTube, per se. After all, monetization in younger age groups can be rather lucrative, too. Rodriguez stressed the notion that one platform isn’t better than the other — just that competition between the two is important.

“We appreciate the value of a more mature audience,” Rodriguez said. “It’s cool to have two different audiences. There’s different dialogue in different ways. I wouldn’t say one’s better than the other, though.

“YouTube is the current giant that controls everything, but they need a Facebook to keep them in check.”

LOS ANGELES, CA – AUGUST 13: (L-R) Lavar Ball and LaMelo Ball look on from the audience during week eight of the BIG3 three on three basketball league at Staples Center on August 13, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

Additionally, pigeonholing Ballislife’s content into one platform was against its business model.

“We have a big presence on YouTube, but I wanted to have a big presence on every platform,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t want to have all my eggs in one basket.”

As of now, Ballislife has not been able to monetize its livestreams — Facebook’s advertising model is in beta mode — but Rodriguez is optimistic that Facebook will be an important medium for them and other live streaming content creators in the future.

“Facebook should be high on any [content creator’s] priority list,” Rodriguez said. “We’re pretty happy with the success that we’ve had so far.”

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About Avery Yang

Avery is a daily writer at SportTechie, where he covers the intersection between sports and technology. This past season, he covered the Atlanta Hawks for ESPN TrueHoop Network’s HawksHoop. He previously covered the Hawks for the Emory Wheel—Emory University’s student newspaper—where he was also the Sports Editor. He is now attending Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, where he will be getting his BSJ in 2019. When school is not in session, he lives in Los Angeles, by way of New York City.
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